


Ends to Dread to Meet

by UselessLesbianLaughter



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Final Battle, Heavy Angst, Major character death - Freeform, No happy endings, One-Shot, Tags Contain Spoilers, catradora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 20:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17474075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessLesbianLaughter/pseuds/UselessLesbianLaughter
Summary: It's the final battle between the Horde and the allied kingdoms. There is no fate other than victory and whoever is victorious will rule over Etheria forever.Adora leads the cavalry of the kingdoms. Catra leads the tanks of Horde. The battle is epic, many lives are sacrificed, many wasted and few saved. No mercy, no winners, only survivors.It wasn't supposed to end like this. Yet, with the Sword of She-Ra plunged through Catra, and the sky beaming with light, it does end.Music listened to while writing: Victory - Two Steps from Hell; Le Cygne/The Swan by Camille Saint-SaënsLast stanzas are from the poem The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne.





	Ends to Dread to Meet

 As night falls, the march begins. Battalions on each side, moving in perfect unison, each individual head perfectly aware that this is where it ends. Tonight, under the blood red moon, no mercy will be spared. Whoever survives will rule Etheria for the rest of eternity. The games are played and done, this battle won’t end with winners and losers- there is no fate besides victory.

 Heterochromatic eyes flash in the darkness. Catra’s confidence refuses to budge even as she wishes it would. Victory is the only option. The forces she leads destroy everything in their path, humongous tanks and infantry, both loaded with grenades and machine guns, Bright Moon, even in alliance with all the other kingdoms, stands no chance against this grade of weaponry.

 Catra herself moves through the jungle of trees. She wants to be there, in the middle, when it all goes down.

 The kingdoms march on horses, some on foot, not a vehicle in sight. Adora has put all her hopes on the combined magic of the princesses, it’s all she has. The civilian cavalry can only buy them time and she knows that, knows it damn well, but what other choice does she have? They’re armed with swords and bows, nothing compared the Horde’s technology.

 Still, she marches, as She-Ra, in the lead, holding her sword up high as a beacon. Etheria is their home and they won’t go down without a fight. She marches with bravery in her step, with tears stinging her gleaming eyes, with teeth and fists clenched.

 The forces on each side spot each other at exactly the same time, down to the very second, and for a second there is pure silence. Nothing moves, nothing breathes, no one dares.

 As the first breath is drawn, the forces collide. The first horsemen fly off, blood splatters through the air. The deafening war cries on each side muffle the last cries of brave soldiers, gasping for air under hooves and tank tracks.

 In the centre of it all, Catra, a battle rifle strapped to her back, forcing her way through, swiftly moving between falling bodies, flying arrows and bullets, and Adora, sword grasped tight, slicing enemy skin left and right, emptying eyes of former friends, not stopping to watch the life flood out of them but moving on to slicing tires, grunting through tears.

 Adora kicks a lump out of her way, not bothering to think what or who it might’ve been before. A dull pain spreads through her back, she wavers but doesn’t fall. She turns to find a Horde soldier, short in growth but completely anonymous because of their dark visor. They’re unarmed. Adora quickly straps her sword to her back and dodges their punch, tackling them from below. On the ground, she grounds her elbow into her opponents face without thinking, the visor shattering upon impact. The soldier’s head rolls to the side, their body going limp.

Fear clumps in Adora’s eyes as she pants on top of them, quickly gathering herself and flinging herself off their body. Right on time as well. The Horde tank she’d spotted from the corner of her eye rolls over the body with little disturbance. Blood splatters on Adora’s boots. She can’t afford to think about that now. She has to run. She has to make it past enemy lines to put an end to all this. She reaches for her sword and points it forward- nothing can stop her now.

 Catra was cornered. She pants, hiding behind a tall tree. The arrows from the bows of the civilian cavalry refuse to stop flying around her head. There’s one stuck in her right shoulder. She breaks off the part that was sticking out and slides up the tree. A few more arrows fly her way as she disappears into the thick branches but fall without hitting anything. Once she’s invisible, they give up. Catra pounces from the treetop, skillfully landing on the ground.

 She doesn’t have time to think about her wound. She has to run. If she could just make it to the rhinestone, she could put an end to all this. She launches herself forward, picking up speed, leaping across the battlefield, mines going off to her left and her right, wounded soldiers begging to die under her feet. She’s closer than ever. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing it for or if she ever did, but she knows that she won’t be satisfied until darkness succumbs Etheria forever, she won’t be satisfied until it’s all over.

 It happens so quickly, then. A sharp pain spreads through her veins, gradually numbing, as if someone had just punched her in the gut.

 She picks up on a panicked voice coming through a fog, almost as though she’s underwater.

 “Catra?!”

 “Adora?” There’s no snide in her voice, even if she’d intended there to be. It’s weak and groggy and hollow.

 Catra lets her head fall to see her abdomen’s a bloody mess. Her knees buckle. Her hands grip the Sword of She-Ra. She tries but fails to pull it out. Wavering, she looks up into blue eyes. Adora shrinks, her hair becomes dull, her eyes less piercingly blue.

 “Oh god,” she groans. _What have I done?_

She leaps to Catra’s side, hooking her arm behind Catra’s back and lowering her down gently so she could lay on her back.

 “I’m sorry, Catra. I’ll get help, I promise. I can fix this.”

 “No,” Catra breathes. “It’s too late.”

 Adora shakes her head desperately, strands of her hair stuck to her forehead, her lip trembling and eyes filled with tears.

 “You have to believe me. I can heal you. I can make this better,” she promises in despair and denial, not believing a word she says.

 Catra shakes her head weakly in response. “Face it, Adora. There were only that many ways this could end,” she smiles, barely, despite herself, “at least it’s the end.”

 “It doesn’t have to be,” Adora pleads.

 Catra coughs up blood, retching and groaning in pain. “At least I get to die in your arms.” She chuckles which turns into another bloody cough.

 “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Catra, I never meant to hurt _you_. I loved you. You know I did. You know I did, right? It wasn’t supposed to end like this, it-”

 “Wasn’t it?”

Adora lays her head to Catra’s chest to weep. Catra painfully drags her bloodied hand to Adora’s hair, stroking it gently, interlacing her fingers with blonde strands, her nails safely in their beds.

 They lay like that for a while, blood pooling around them.

 “Hey Adora,” Catra eventually whispers into Adora’s hair, “I’m… so… cold.”

 She could feel it- Catra going limp in her arms, muscle by muscle, as life flooded out of her eyes and they slowly glazed over. Her skin was still warm and the blood that had yet begun to clot was unbearably hot, its irony stench infecting Adora’s nostrils.

 It didn’t faze her when a grenade went off bare meters from them, barely a safe distance. She didn’t lift her head when the sky lit up suddenly, marking victory. Loud cheers and groans of agony united in a choir of noise that meant nothing in light of this.

 Daylight would bring no mercy nor would the dead of night.

 And into Catra’s chest, now empty of air and life and the gentle breeze of spring, Adora whispered the only words she could muster. The words she’d memorized from the book she’d stolen with Catra when they were little, the one from the room no one must ever enter, dusty and old and gathered by the first ones, hidden under Adora’s bed for years.

  _“We are not sure of sorrow,_  
_And joy was never sure;_  
_To-day will die to-morrow;_  
_Time_ stoops _to no man's lure;_  
_And love, grown faint and fretful,_  
_With lips but half regretful_  
_Sighs, and with eyes forgetful_  
_Weeps that no loves endure._

 _From too much love of living,_  
_From hope and fear set free,_  
_We thank with brief thanksgiving_  
_Whatever gods may be_  
_That no life lives_ for ever _;_  
_That dead men rise up never;_  
_That even the weariest river_  
_Winds somewhere safe to sea.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi loves, I haven't written bloody anything in a long, long time and this is my first Catradora fic but if you've read even one of my stories before you know I'm a feedback vampire who lives off of your comments. I print them out, blend them into a smoothie, very nutritious, very delicious. I liquidize them and put them in an IV drip straight to my bloodstream. They keep my heart pumping. They keep my organs functioning. They are the air in my lungs. They are the endorphins in my brain, the smile on my face, my sole source of serotonin, my actual lifeblood, I'm so grateful for each comment, you can't even imagine.


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